Author: Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

Christian Children’s Books

Christian Children's Books - Parenting Like Hannah When I was a child, the only Christian books for children were mainly ones that retold Bible stories. If you haven’t checked out all of the new Christian picture and chapter books for kids, I would encourage you to take a look at your local Christian bookstore. Many of the books are comparable to secular books, but address character in the light of God’s will for your children.

Recently, I was given the opportunity to review God Gave Us Thankful Hearts by Lisa Bergren. A new picture book (It releases Aug. 23), this is a sweet tale of Little Pup and his unhappiness that winter is coming. Through a series of encounters during his day, Little Pup’s mom helps him realize that even though winter isn’t his favorite season, he will still have a lot of things for which to thank God.

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Christian Kids and Fun

One of the saddest conversations I sometimes have with teens and young adults is when they tell me they sinned for “fun” and now they are so enmeshed in it, they can’t see their way back to God. Obviously, they can and hopefully will find their way back, but the entire journey and its negative consequences (which can last for the rest of their lives) were unnecessary.

Want to keep your children away from that path, entirely? Teach them how to have fun in godly ways. The world has this view of Christians as Puritans on steroids – boring, humorless, drab, with a constant frown or sneer on their faces and worse. Yet, it doesn’t have to be that way. You and your children can have fun and lots of it. Better yet, that fun rarely has negative consequences (omitting the occasional broken bone!) and in my personal experience godly fun is often less expensive and more fulfilling. (Plus you don’t wake up feeling horrible from all of that “fun” the next morning.)

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Character Education That Works

Kids, Spring and the Parables of Jesus - Parenting Like Hannah In the Problem With Character Education, we examined the issues secular groups have with being truly successful in developing strong, good character in children. I believe when you place God back where He belongs in character education, the results will be much more consistent than the results in secular character education have been thus far.

The ironic thing is that the schools who would insist there is a strong separation of church and state have found that the values of God found in the Bible are the values that make people more successful, more content and even healthier in life. Isn’t it amazing the truths of God are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow?!

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The Problem With Character Education

The Problem With Character Education - Parenting Like Hannah Paul Tough in his book How Children Succeed, quotes studies proving there are multiple benefits for children who have strong character traits and act on them. Ironically, the benefits even include better health as an adult (Ephesians 6:3). It’s no wonder public schools and others have wanted to introduce character education as a part of their curriculum.

What is interesting, as a Christian, is that their efforts have had uneven results at best. It seems that when internal motivations fail to remind young people to have good character, they must rely on external motivations. Those who don’t have parents or schools who are there by their side constantly reinforcing the positive behaviors will often fall back on previous bad habits in character. Secular attempts at character education have had to resort to creating good “habits” as the best way of reinforcing good character when no one is around to encourage those whose internal motivation is failing them. (And there is no real evidence that works much better.)

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A Teen’s View of Christian Parenting

For some time now, I have wanted to have an older teen or college student write their view of Christian parenting to share with you. It gives a lot of insight to understand how Christian homes actually touch the thought processes of the children raised in them.

Sunday, one of the teens in our congregation gave a very short sermon that had every adult in the room ready to stand up and cheer. He captured the heart of this ministry better than I ever could. Ben G. (age 17) agreed to let me publish his talk as written. It’s worth every second of your time.

“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This is God’s pattern for parenting. As God’s people, we are called to be unique. That calling is sometimes found later on in life through study and worship, but most of us find that calling in our homes as children.

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